Values, Environmental Concern, and Environmental Behavior

TLDR

The study investigates how household energy use is influenced by values. It applies the concept of quality of life as a framework to analyze this relationship. Seven value dimensions derived from QOL aspects, together with environmental concern, significantly predict support for regulation, market strategies, and acceptance of energy‑saving measures, while sociodemographic factors also influence home and transport energy use, indicating that attitudinal variables alone are insufficient to explain all environmental behaviors.

Abstract

In this study, the role of values in the field of household energy use is investigated by using the concept of quality of life (QOL). Importance judgments on 22 QOL aspects could be summarized into seven clearly interpretable value dimensions. The seven value dimensions and general and specific environmental concern contributed significantly to the explanation of policy support for government regulation and for market strategies aimed at managing environmental problems as well as to the explanation of the acceptability of specific home and transport energy-saving measures. In line with earlier research, home and transport energy use were especially related to sociodemographic variables like income and household size. These results show that it is relevant to distinguish between different measures of environmental impact and different types of environmental intent. Moreover, the results suggest that using only attitudinal variables, such as values, may be too limited to explain all types of environmental behavior.